E3 2018: Hands-on with the Neo Geo Mini

It was last month that we first learned of the Neo Geo Mini, a portable arcade cabinet that features a 3.5 inch LCD monitor that also outputs via HDMI.

While we still don’t have an official release date or price, it was a nice surprise to see that it was actually playable at E3 and I spent quite a bit of time playing a few titles and checking out the device.

That’s right, both versions were on display and fully playable, so how does it look and feel?

It took me awhile to get comfortable with the built-in arcade stick. It’s pretty small and I had a few issues with inputs but this is still in development so I imagine it will be ironed out closer to its final release.

On a 3.5 inch LCD screen, everything looks crisp and beautiful. There is no noticeable lag in any of the games I played, which included King of Fighters 97, 98, Garou Mark of the Wolves and Metal Slug. The Neo Geo Mini is extremely light at only 1.3 lbs, making it easy to carry around. It was quite a surprise when I actually held it.

If you’d rather play the Neo Geo Mini from the comfort of your couch, SNK will also release wired controllers that will plug in to the side of your system. You can plug in up to two controllers designed to look like the Neo Geo CD controllers. While I liked the miniature arcade experience with the miniature arcade stick, I prefer using the controller just because it feels so much more comfortable.

I was already looking forward to the device, but it leaves the question of how much will it cost? While we still wait on that information, we know that both versions of the Mini will feature 40 playable games with a few different titles between the two.

Even though the list of titles on both versions of the Neo Geo Mini have already been released, here is a look at the user interface on the International version.